This month’s Creative Blackpool Network Breakfast runs straight into Growing Creative Health in Blackpool, a Showcase & Symposium exploring the town’s creative health.
Creative Blackpool’s September Network Breakfast is going to be a belly buster. On Thursday 17 September, the usual morning meeting at Blackpool and the Fylde College University Centre will run straight into a showcase and symposium focussed on Growing Creative Health in Blackpool – turning the two-hour breakfast networking event into a full day of connection, discussion and celebration of the town’s creative health sector.
The day opens with the usual Network Breakfast format from 8.30am to 10.30am and if you’re a creative living or working in Blackpool, it’s well worth going along. Arrivals run from 8.30am, with a hot drink and a morning snack, before the agenda kicks off at 9am.
Creative Blackpool will give updates on the City of Culture submission, Cultural Passport development, Seed and Community projects, and the Cultural Sector development programmes before the focus turns to wellbeing, mental health and resilience.
Practitioners running creative projects across Blackpool will be in conversation. Comdey duo Black Liver will be chatting with Electric Pink Voices’ Phill Fairhurst, before Helen Shearn, Sue Flowers and Joe Booth reflect on the Blackpool Coastal Communities Creative Health projects.
The breakfast closes with networking and round-table conversations on Blackpool’s creative future.
Rather than wrapping up there, attendees are invited to stay on as the breakfast rolls straight into Blackpool’s Making Waves Discussion Forum where a showcase and symposium will explore Growing Creative Health in Blackpool from 10.30am to 4.30pm.
The event, MC’d by Nathan Parker, will shine a light on the creative health work already happening in Blackpool and explore how to grow, sustain and embed it, through presentations and interactive discussions with local, regional and national leaders in the creative health sector.
The day includes presentations from national leaders in creative health, an exploration of local creative health projects, and the chance to help shape the sector’s future in the town. Alongside the sessions, a gallery exhibition will display artwork created by people with lived experience of young people’s mental health, substance misuse and recovery, end-of-life care and bereavement, shown alongside creative responses from artists Joe Booth, Henry Iddon and Jayne Simpson.
Creative Blackpool Network Breakfast takes place on Thursday 17 September 2026, 8.30am-10.30am, at Blackpool and the Fylde College University Centre, Park Road, Blackpool FY1 4ES. Tickets via Eventbrite.
Growing Creative Health in Blackpool: Showcase & Symposium follows from 10.30am-4.30pm at the same venue. Tickets via Eventbrite.
